During oil and gas operations, downhole tools become stuck occasionally and require expensive retrieval operations known as “fishing.” Various reasons exist for the tool to become stuck, such as instances when the tool encounters a restriction that has formed in the inner diameter of the wellbore.
In situations when the stuck tool is still attached to an intact cable (e.g., wireline), a cable-guided fishing assembly is utilized. The Cable Guided Fishing Assembly is comprised of various components to ensure positive engagement of the stuck tool with the use of an overshot on a drill pipe. The heavy duty rope socket is used in the assembly to allow the cable to be cut and spliced during strip over operations.
There are disadvantages to conventional rope socket designs. Some designs employ a dual cast slip design having a set screw to hold a wireline in the slip carrier. However, the slips are line size specific and, because only two slips were used, non-uniform loading of the cable limits the pull load rating. Other designs utilized springs which sit directly atop the slips and can compress unevenly, resulting in unsecure coupling between the slips and the cable. In addition, the cable can sometimes become caught on the spring during insertion. Moreover, conventional designs provided no way to quickly ascertain whether the cable was engaged fully into the rope socket or whether the cable had slipped during operations.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for a heavy duty rope socket which addresses these and other concerns.